A Doll named Angel
by Kat Angel
Summary: On the top of a tall hill, nothing bothers the graves besides the lone breeze... and two teen-agers, lost in memories. *is sorry about the previous rating, scrolled too far, but fixed it!!*


To this day I can't tell you why we decided to go there in the first place. I think we were just bored and wanted to see where we would both end up one day. It's odd- you know other people are going to the same place, just not as soon as you- but by some morbid human curiosity, you still want to see it.  
Jamie and I started out our little field trip with a million complaints of boredom to our nurse Sarah. We convinced her that we wanted to go see old friends past, but really we were just... well, bored. So we got permission slips and hopped into a hospital van, on our way to the cemetary. It took awhile- one not-so-strong nurse and two weak teenagers in wheelchairs- but we made it. She said we could go on by ourselves if we wanted, so off we went.  
We started down the main road, quicker than the other roads because it's blacktopped and not gravel. Somehow we ended up near the back, at the top of the hill, though how we ended up pushing ourselves there is a mystery to me. The main gateway is at the bottom of a long, tall hill, with four gravel roads running parallel to the blacktopped. The bottom was littered with large oak trees, though on the top there were only two or three. From the top, you could see over the hills nearby and see the Mississippi shine the sun's rays.  
Today though, it was cloudy. Jamie (my Nintendo Master, if you've ever read Chicken Soup for the Teenager's Soul II) was rambling on about the latest Super Nintendo games, I wasn't really paying attention to much more than the cold breeze. We past a small grave, with a tall angel sticking out from the top of it. The marble was weathered but still shined slightly under what was showing of the sun. I had to stop and lean over to it, brushing past a bit of grass so we could see the name. Elizabeth Marie Morris...  
"Bethy. She was the one with the doll, remember?"  
I had to think about it. Then a picture popped into my head- a tiny blonde five-year old girl, with cancer of the blood (the big L). Her hair was so white and her cheeks were so pale... so fragile. I remembered when Sarah asked 'What, you think others don't think the same about you?'. Which, until then, I hadn't.  
She always carried this doll- a small worn old porcelin human- with the cheeks soft pink and lips cherry red, eyes baby blue, the hair in curls and the yellowest of blondes. Or, at least, it was at one time. It was old, with most of the painted features worn off. The tiny red velvet skirt faded and no longer smooth. The soft body but hard limbs. When she was in for her fifth surgery, she had me watch her for the night, to keep her safe. The only name she had for that doll was Angie, short for Angel.  
I saw her father. Once. He was in the navy, and visited her in his white uniform, not helping the nurse scrubs that she'd grown accustomed to. She later told me her father had brought the doll for her from Germany, way before she got sick. She only held it when she got scared and didn't have her daddy around to protect her.  
She must of been scared a lot.  
I remember how her father had come in there with a fake smile on her face, but she was too happy to notice. She ran into her daddy's arms and started babbling about how much she missed him and all the mean things Nurse Wrachet did to her (Jamie and I were good influences, weren't we?). He just nodded lightly and pretended to listen while he watched the football game on the television. Her mother- a small but pretty little thing- just smiled happily to see them all together.  
She never had a clue. When they were leaving, they put her in her room while Jamie and I were talking in the lounge. When they closed her door and walked through, they were arguing- he didn't like hospitals and didn't see a point in visiting his dead daughter anymore. Then he blamed his wife on the whole situation, and walked out, leaving her crying. I gripped Jamie's hand, which was clenched tightly into a fist. Oh, don't blow up here. Let the man go back to his duty of defending us. He does it so well.  
Sarah glanced at us as she took the crying woman to the nurse's lounge, trying to calm the hysterity that came from her every pore. Jamie was cursing, or at least I'd bet he was, in spanish under his breath. I remember him barely spitting out before wheeling to his room in a blur, 'Sounds too much like me father, adamante. I'd of killed him if I'd have the chance.' And I totally beleived him- though my best friend HAD lost most of his muscles, he made sure to keep his strong arm muscles. "To protect adamante and our Super Nintendo," he had proclaimed- since every other kid on the floor tried to steal it from us. That kinda made me think, though. None of the other kids never DID mess with me. Maybe he DID have something to do with it.  
A week later Bethy died. She was still holding that doll when she was found, holding a picture of her daddy in the chair in the corner- the one her mother always sat in, Sarah told us. She was buried on a Wensday with her doll, half-way up on that old hill, even though Jamie and I didn't go to the funeral.. The only reason the memory was brought to me was because of the doll's name. I guess her daddy told her what the doll's name was. The same thing on her tombstone. I remember she once called me that.... The Angel of her Angel... the same nick-name my brother gave me, since I was still alive and fighting somehow..  
I glanced at Jamie. He patted my arm and tilted his head up the hill, a sudden soft tone to his voice as he uttered, "Come on. Let's leave her with her Angel."  
It took me awhile to get my head clear and leave. Somehow, we made it up the rest of the way and stared out at the dull Mississippi. Damn clouds take away the sunshine. The last thing I remembered was feeling the breeze again, and feeling Jamie's hand clasp around my own. So we sat there for awhile, thinking thoughts to ourselves.  
Though mine were filled with Bethy and her doll named Angel. 


End file.
